How timely as I have just spent the downtime days of December catching up on current state of Linux (and BSD). I was a big visitor of Distrowatch and pretty much tested the big 5 as well as a few fringe ones that sounded interesting and were pretty up-to-date.
I was mostly looking for ease of installing as well as setting it up to be a workable internet/email machine, ultimately leaving it up for the guest who would house-sit for me over Xmas. My criteria on the opinions below are based on not only installing, but also; ease of updating, get it functioning fine on the current web (youtube, flash games, etc), install a few software choices I preferred and finally try to "break" the system by pretending I wanted the latest Mesa drivers than what came with it.
First, I see a lot of suggestions by many for Arch. I really do understand the following this distro and others based on it because of the super control of having complete choice of everything installed, BUT to recommend it is a bit much for anyone just wanting things to work for a while and then getting real work done after. This "rolling release" model of distro (and Gentoo even more so) is great for those wanting to learn more/experiment about linux or those who just can't stand having anything other than the latest release for every single item on the hard drive. Stick with binary distro's to save your sanity in the long run.
Off all the 10+ I tried, I recommend this:
1) OpenSuse Leap - Pretty up-to-date and long term support cycle. Even better look to the Spin GeckoLinux for well put together lite/minimalist Opensuse Leap spins. I really liked these and he has them made for all the popular desktop environments (I really liked Geckolinux Mate). OpenSuse "Tumbleweed" is their rolling release version for those wanting latest software.
2) Korora - A Fedora spin with great defaults, codecs, etc. Also has choice of DE and Korora Mate was the one I ultimately left on my machine for my house guest.
3) Any of the Ubuntu spins like Ubuntu-Mate or KDE, etc. I leaned more towards the LTS version (16.04) because I just prefer longer stability/support between major releases. I really liked the corny named Maui Linux. This is a spin of KDE Neon (which is KDE's own distro and based on Ubuntu). Maui has a cool idea to be part rolling when you want so you can get latest, then just freeze it and turn it into a long term just security updates LTS. I was able to get the latest KDE and Mesa just by enabling a repository, then I unchecked it and can stay with it. Maui was sort of ugly imo at default but I quickly was able to get rid of their theme to a vanilla Breeze/KDE. I also am enjoying KDE again because of Maui.
Also, Suse's Zypper (and now Fedora's dnf, which is based off of Zypper) I think are the best package managers, by far. Do research for why, but RPM has come a long way. I was able to update major versions of Leap and Fedora without a hitch. Install software and back out if needed. All very speedy on top of it.
I was mostly looking for ease of installing as well as setting it up to be a workable internet/email machine, ultimately leaving it up for the guest who would house-sit for me over Xmas. My criteria on the opinions below are based on not only installing, but also; ease of updating, get it functioning fine on the current web (youtube, flash games, etc), install a few software choices I preferred and finally try to "break" the system by pretending I wanted the latest Mesa drivers than what came with it.
First, I see a lot of suggestions by many for Arch. I really do understand the following this distro and others based on it because of the super control of having complete choice of everything installed, BUT to recommend it is a bit much for anyone just wanting things to work for a while and then getting real work done after. This "rolling release" model of distro (and Gentoo even more so) is great for those wanting to learn more/experiment about linux or those who just can't stand having anything other than the latest release for every single item on the hard drive. Stick with binary distro's to save your sanity in the long run.
Off all the 10+ I tried, I recommend this:
1) OpenSuse Leap - Pretty up-to-date and long term support cycle. Even better look to the Spin GeckoLinux for well put together lite/minimalist Opensuse Leap spins. I really liked these and he has them made for all the popular desktop environments (I really liked Geckolinux Mate). OpenSuse "Tumbleweed" is their rolling release version for those wanting latest software.
2) Korora - A Fedora spin with great defaults, codecs, etc. Also has choice of DE and Korora Mate was the one I ultimately left on my machine for my house guest.
3) Any of the Ubuntu spins like Ubuntu-Mate or KDE, etc. I leaned more towards the LTS version (16.04) because I just prefer longer stability/support between major releases. I really liked the corny named Maui Linux. This is a spin of KDE Neon (which is KDE's own distro and based on Ubuntu). Maui has a cool idea to be part rolling when you want so you can get latest, then just freeze it and turn it into a long term just security updates LTS. I was able to get the latest KDE and Mesa just by enabling a repository, then I unchecked it and can stay with it. Maui was sort of ugly imo at default but I quickly was able to get rid of their theme to a vanilla Breeze/KDE. I also am enjoying KDE again because of Maui.
Also, Suse's Zypper (and now Fedora's dnf, which is based off of Zypper) I think are the best package managers, by far. Do research for why, but RPM has come a long way. I was able to update major versions of Leap and Fedora without a hitch. Install software and back out if needed. All very speedy on top of it.
Hope this was helpful.